Song be delicate

This small, whimsical scene depicts an infant in foetal position, in the foreground, surrounded by flora and fauna. Hanrahan has included her popular motifs of sunflowers, bees, bellshaped flowers and other insects. The artist has employed an illustrative technique to achieve finite engraving, creating detail and form. It is a good example of Hanrahan's mastery of wood engraving, which allows the artist to create delicate linear and tonal values and from which, many inpressions may be taken.

Barbara Janice Hanrahan (1939-1991) was born in Adelaide, South Australia. Her father died when she was one year old and she was brought up as an only child by her mother, a commercial artist, living with her grandmother and aunt in her grandmother's house in Thebarton. This impressionable childhood was the subject of Hanrahan's first novel The scent of eucalyptus in 1973.

Hanrahan studied at the South Australian School of Art from 1957-62 and developed an interest in printmaking. She continued her studies at the Central School of Art in London, gaining a Diploma in Etching with distinctions, and for another year with post diploma skills in etching, lithography, wood engraving and silkscreen. Hanrahan taught art at Western Teacher's College and at the South Australian School of Art, then at Falmouth College of Art.

Hanrahan said of her own etchings, 'the two parts: the image on the plate and the printing of it on to paper are quite different processes. They don't go together; they're as different as clean and dirty hands' (Kempf: 1976). Hanrahan's work 'presents strange unique blend of the decorative ornateness of the wood-engraver illustrator, and the defiant explicit sexuality informed by feminism and a commentary on pop culture' (Grishin: 1994).

Hanrahan was a prolific artist, producing more than 400 prints, as well as a number of paintings, and her work was exhibited in Australia, London and France. She held over 30 one-woman exhibitions. She was writer in residence at the University of Adelaide for a period in 1987, and later the same year, at Rollins College, Florida in the USA. She remains one of the most original printmakers Australia has produced and a painstaking craftswoman. She was one of the few printmakers in Australia to have earned a living through her prints and her writing.

This item is reproduced courtesy of the estate of Barbara Hanrahan. It may be printed or saved for research or study. Use for any other purpose requires written permission from the estate of Barbara Hanrahan. To request approval, complete the Quote for Copy/Permission form.